‘Dead Civilians Were Found’ – Ukraine at War Update for Oct. 28

AFP reported on Sunday that Ukraine is investigating reports that Russian soldiers shot at civilians in the embattled frontline town of Selydove, near the pivotal Donetsk city of Pokrovsk, quoting local prosecutors.

A social media post by the Ukrainian army unit “Ghost of Khortytsia” showed Russian forces opening fire on a civilian’s car. Drone footage shows a person rushing around the vehicle's side, with a caption saying the vehicle had come under “enemy fire.” Meanwhile, a second clip showed what appeared to be two soldiers of the Armed Forces of Ukraine (AFU) accompanied by one of the car’s occupants dragging an injured person away from the scene.

“During the attack, two citizens were inside the car, one of whom was wounded,” the prosecutor general’s office was quoted by AFP as saying in a statement.

The video went on to show AFU troops dragging the victim away from the line of fire, and providing the wounded person with first aid.

The same source went on to claim that Moscow’s forces had shot two women in the city, and that “dead civilians were found” in areas taken over by the Kremlin’s troops. Russia’s army has been “closing in on the eastern mining town of Selydove for weeks and is now on its outskirts, according to military bloggers.”

According to AFP, Moscow has been accused before of shooting at and executing civilians in parts of Ukraine they have captured and controlled since the February 2022 invasion, singling out an event in April 2022, when “the bodies of dozens of civilians, some with their hands tied, were found in the Kyiv suburb of Bucha after a month-long occupation by Russian forces.”

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HUR posts video purporting to show North Korean troops being shuttled into the Kursk region in a civilian truck

Ukrainska Pravda on Sunday singled out a Facebook video from Ukraine’s Main Intelligence Directorate (HUR) purporting to show that the Kremlin is transporting North Korean military reinforcements to the front lines in KamAZ trucks bearing civilian plates.

The HUR reported that on Sunday, Oct. 27, local police stopped a Russian truck with civilian plates loaded with North Korean soldiers on the Kursk-Voronezh highway, lacking the requisite documentation stating that the vehicle’s contents were meant for combat.

“In an intercepted radio communication obtained by Ukrainian intelligence, officers of the 810th Guards Naval Infantry Brigade of Russia’s occupying forces, which was to receive the North Korean reinforcement, tried to determine if the stopped lorry was on their balance sheet and why the driver lacked the required documents,” Ukrainska Pravda reported.

Meanwhile, President Volodymyr Zelensky said in his nightly video address that he had received a briefing on the continued assault on positions in the Russian region of Kursk and that all was going according to plan.

After the BRICS summit in Russia, Pretoria insists South Africa follows a policy of “non-alignment”

Now representing the third-largest military in Africa, but still the largest economy on the continent with a GDP of about $403 billion, South Africa on Sunday attempted to declare its neutrality in the Russian-led war against Ukraine, even after its president joined Russian leader Vladimir Putin in a summit of the BRICS nations in Kazan last week, a group to which South Africa is a founding signatory.

“In declaring President Putin and the people of Russia as ‘valuable friends and allies,’ President Ramaphosa was not projecting any particular country or block of countries as the enemy,” the office of South African President Cyril Ramaphosa stated on Sunday, in an attempt to clarify comments he had made during the summit earlier in the week, insisting that he was not favoring Russia over Ukraine.

Ever since the era of Apartheid, the Kremlin has backed the country’s African National Congress’ liberation struggle, much as Moscow’s spy agencies had relied on covert support in the US during the height of the Cold War and Apartheid in the 1980s.

“It is through the policy of non-alignment that South Africa has been able to constructively engage with both Russia and Ukraine,” the statement read.

At the summit, Ramaphosa had made comments about being a Russian ally, which had led to a split in his own government, AFP reported, with the Democratic Alliance, a former opposition party that is now a partner in a delicate coalition, saying that it could not consider Russia or Putin to be an ally. 

On Monday, South African Foreign Minister Ronald Lamola will host his Ukrainian counterpart Andriy Sybiga. Their talks will include visa waivers for South African officials visiting Ukraine.

“This will enable South African officials to travel to Ukraine for peace formula meetings without visa logistical impediments,” Pretoria’s foreign ministry said.